Praising God Through Adversity by Laura Linne

“Praise the Lord, O my soul! While I live, I will praise the Lord; I will sing praises to my God while I have my being.” Psalm 145: 2 ~

This verse is a beautiful reminder to praise God all our lives long. It is easy to praise His amazing name for the wonderful things that He has done in our lives. During our cycles of blessings, we relish the moments when we sing our praise to Him in song. We love our quiet time at His feet as we delve into His word. The thankfulness we feel cannot be experienced with anything or anyone else in the world but with the Lord.

Our relationship with God is a beautiful thing. We feel His hand upon us as we go about our day at work and at play, enjoying his blessings and the fruits of our labor. But what about our down times? We are quick to praise God when all is as it should be in life. Are we so quick to praise Him when things go wrong? We are to praise God at ALL times and in ALL things. In the good times and the bad. But it’s not an easy thing to praise Him for adversity, is it? When the storm clouds of life swirl about us and it seems everything that can go wrong in life is indeed going very wrong without an end in sight-do we praise God then? The hard answer to that question is, yes.

It may seem like a bitter pill to swallow, but we are to praise God for all things that happen not just the good. Why? Because through our adversity, God makes us stronger. He does not create the bad that happens to us but does use our trials and our strife to bring us back and closer to Him. When adversity hits, we tend to lose faith just a little. It’s hard to admit but it is human nature. We have the tendency to focus more on the problems swirling about us, then on God who will see us through all our problems. As our misguided focus stays upon our problems, we begin to worry and not hear the loving words of God in our ear and in our heart.

The Lord Himself says in Matthew 6:25-26, <span “style=color: #000080”>“therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?”

The Lord promises to take care of you. He is with you through every trial and every milestone. He guides you and guards you for you are His precious creation and His precious child. Matthew 11:28 states: “Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”

Isn’t that a beautiful promise? So why then do we worry during our times of trial? Why do we lose heart right when we need our faith to be the strongest it can possibly be? The tough part is to keep as strong a faith in our adversity as we have in our times of peace.

It is an amazing feeling to rest in the Lord and give Him all our worry, you might say, but does He promise to see us through our Goliath sized problems or does He leave us to work them out on our own? After all, our problems are our fault. We got into our messes, doesn’t He leave us to get out of them?

That answer is in the promise He made to His people back in Deuteronomy of the Old Testament. He speaks to both Jew and Gentile alike in Deuteronomy 4:30-31, “When you are in distress, and all these things come upon you in the latter days, when you turn to the Lord your God and obey His voice, (for the Lord your God is a merciful God), He will not forsake you nor destroy you, nor forget the covenant of your fathers which He swore to them.”

Praise the Lord, He is always faithful! In Psalm 145: 14-16: “The Lord upholds all who fall, and raises up all who are bowed down. The eyes of all look expectantly to You, and You give them their fool in due season. You open Your hand and satisfy the desire of every living thing.”

He is so praise worthy every day in every up and down of life. Keep your focus on Him and He will see you through. God creates a way when there seems to be no way out. He is with you through every breath and every second both good and bad. His love is everlasting and within His warm embrace, you will find the comfort and protection that you crave in times of trouble.

Psalm 145:17-20, tells us that, “The Lord is righteous in all His ways, Gracious in all His works. The Lord is near to all who call upon Him, to all who call upon Him in truth. He will fulfill the desire of those who fear Him, to all who call upon Him in truth. He will hear their cry and save them. The Lord preserves all who love Him.”

Isn’t that glorious? Isn’t God praiseworthy in times of strife and sorrow? Don’t dwell on your shortcomings or problems in life. Instead, dwell upon the Lord our God who will see you through them. Sing your praises to Him every day and in all things. We know the problems that we create for ourselves and God will help us out of them.

There are also trials that we encounter that we have no idea why we are experiencing them or how they came to be. But we do know that God is there always. He is right with you and He is guiding you. He will see you through your bleakest moments with love and compassion that you can only find in Him.

Praise God! Praise His holy name!

Laura is an author of Christian Romantic Fiction. You can catch her book “The Silver Falcon” right now on Amazon.com. She also is a freelance writer for many web sites.